


Shadow

by missgnutmeg



Series: The Stardust Vignettes [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Short, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6054424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgnutmeg/pseuds/missgnutmeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall, Loki lost everything. Even himself. But a shadow cannot exist without sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Playing around with a little 'what if' inspired a bit by a song.

> something kind of hit me today  
>  I looked at you and wondered  
>  if you saw things my way  
>  people will hold us to blame  
>  it hit me today, it hit me today  
>  **We Are the Dead** by David Bowie

The pale curtain lifts from the window, billowing full with wind in ghostly apparition. Moonlight filters through the white fabric to cast the room in a peaceful glow. 

It should be soothing, but the man on the bed tosses against sweat soaked sheets with the restlessness of a fear that has no name except that which is whispered in pain-tinged midnight dreams. Steve Rogers does not sleep easy.

The moon’s shadows shift, turning into the visage of a man against the curtain. It remains there, unseen by the slumberer until it disappears beyond the edge of dawn.

It appears again the following night, undetected as shadows so often are. As the sleeping Steve begins his nighttime flailings against the confines of his dream, the shadow moves. Slipping out from behind the curtain it substantiates into a true man. Raven hair frames a pale but nobel face with high cheeks and curious green eyes. Those eyes fix on the struggling form of Steve Rogers as the shadows makes its way to stand at the end of the bed. It stays, unmoving, through the night. Like the statue of an angel guarding a grave. Yet dawn’s light doesn’t reveal so much as a memory of its passing.

Night after night the shadow appears to stand vigil over the troubled soldier’s rest. There is no emotion on its face but then there is no one to see it. Only the dreamer trapped behind his eyelids. Motionless, it watches each nightly battle.

One night as the shadow stands, the soldier releases a sudden cry. It freezes in fear of being caught but soon realizes the cry was one of pain as the soldier’s somniatic twisting continues. The shadow’s heart twinges, becoming a little more real with echoed pain. He reaches out with a single trembling hand to rest on the soldier’s ankle. 

Like a strange magic, the touch seems to calm the demons and Steve Roger’s sleep changes to a more peaceful and truly restful form.

It startles the shadow and it disappears well before dawn this night.

Fear almost keeps the shadow away the night after, but in the end it can’t leave its chosen post. It creeps in with the moonlight and takes its place. But it's curious, now, mind woken by the anomaly. Reaching out, it strokes the bump of a foot through the blanket and in response the man in the bed seems to relax, at least a little.

This reaction intrigues the shadow. It had always shied away from contact when hurt, yet this touch seems to heal.

The shadow, long ago used to scuffs and kicks, is amazed by this. Throughout the night it continues to test this discovery, soothing Steve with gentle brushes each time his dreams seem at their worst.

As the nights progress the shadow becomes more bold. Instead of standing at the foot of the bed, it chooses to sit on the edge of it, next to his soldier’s feet. He keeps a hand gently on one ankle and is continuously amazed by the difference it makes in the man. Steve’s nightmares seem calmer, though he still thrashes sometimes. The shadow can’t help but think about that touch, and sometimes, sometimes it remembers a time when it was more than a shadow. A time when it was he and he was a man. Once he had such tender touches as well. But where had they gone?

The shadow, he, he begins to wonder if a time is coming when Steve will no longer have him, if he will leave this soldier alone as he has been, if the soldier will also become a shadow.

It seems unfair. How could he leave Steve to wither away after the soldier had helped him to gain back some of himself? The shadow makes his decision. 

He lays in the bed, beside his longtime night companion but atop the blankets. His hand rests on the soldier’s hip and he’s so close it seems Steve’s air becomes his own.

When those crystalline blue eyes finally open, to gaze into the waiting green eyes of the shadow, he says his first words in what may just be an eternity.

“I am Loki.”


End file.
